"However! To be very gay!"
Later that evening in a café she leaned across the table and asked excited questions about "Bohême" and Paris. What was Paris really like? The Latin Quarter, the Beaux Arts? What did he do there, how did he live? In what queer and funny old rooms? Did he live alone or with somebody else? Something was clutching now at her breast. (Farrar had sung "Mimi" that night). "Don't be silly!" she told herself. "Oh, Joe!" she said, and she looked down at the fork in her hand which she was fingering nervously. Then she looked quickly up and smiled. "What man did you room with? Any one?" He was smiling across the table still. "You inquisitive woman," said his eyes.
"No, I lived alone," he replied. "And I sat at a drafting board—with a sweater on—it used to be cold."
"Oh, you poor dear!"
"And I worked," he continued, "like a bull pup. And along toward morning I tied a wet towel around my head—"
"Oh, Joe!" Ethel's foot pressed his, and they laughed at each other. "But there must have been," she cried, "so much besides! Joe Lanier, you are lying! There were cafés—and student balls and fancy dress—and singing—and queer streets at night!"
"That's so," he answered solemnly, "the city of Paris did have streets.
You walked on them—from place to place."
"Joe Lanier—"
"First you put the right foot forward, then the left—you moved along."
"Joe! For goodness sakes!"